RIDGE, FIRST HEAD OF U.S. SECURITY, IS QUITTING POST

By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and DAVID JOHNSTON

Published: December 1, 2004

Tom Ridge, who as the first secretary of homeland security led the post-9/11 effort to protect the United States from a terrorist attack at home, said on Tuesday that he would leave his job no later than Feb. 1.

Mr. Ridge, best known to the public as the official who announced changes to the color-coded terrorism alert system, was the seventh member of President Bush's cabinet to announce his resignation since Election Day in a thorough reshaping of the administration in preparation for Mr. Bush's second term.

He told Mr. Bush of his decision on Tuesday morning. At a news conference later, he did not rule out the possibility of eventually taking another job in the administration or running for office.

But he said that for now he wanted to spend more time with his family and think about what to do next after 22 years in public service, including more than three in which he presumably spent nearly every waking moment contemplating the possibility of another attack.

''As I said to you many times before, we have to be right a billion-plus times a year, meaning we have to make literally hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of decisions every year, or every day, and the terrorists only have to be right once,'' Mr. Ridge said.

''I'm going to step back a little, breathe deeply and then decide,'' he said when asked about his plans.

There was no evidence that Mr. Ridge was under any pressure to step aside but also no indication that Mr. Bush made a concerted effort to persuade him to stay.

Administration officials offered no hint of whom the president would nominate to replace Mr. Ridge.

A Republican with close ties to the White House said the administration had a replacement in mind. Several names have risen as possible candidates.

Mr. Ridge came to Washington in 2001, just weeks after the 9/11 attacks, persuaded by Mr. Bush to step down as governor of Pennsylvania to become the domestic security adviser in the White House.

After Congress created the Department of Homeland Security out of 22 separate federal agencies in late 2002, Mr. Bush nominated Mr. Ridge to become the department's first secretary, a job he took up in January 2003.

His tenure was a success by the most basic of measures -- there was no terrorist attack on American soil during that time -- and he oversaw broad changes to the way the United States protects itself, like systems that require foreign visitors to be fingerprinted and programs to screen cargo better and improve communications among federal, state and local authorities.

''In the fight against terrorism, he has played a vital role in protecting the American people from a real and ongoing threat,'' the president said.

Mr. Ridge often had to parry criticism from Democrats that the administration had underfinanced domestic security programs or had not moved quickly enough to address vulnerabilities.

Last summer, during the heat of the presidential campaign, some Democrats accused him of politicizing the terrorism threat when he praised Mr. Bush's leadership in announcing a heightened state of alert.

He was sometimes mocked for installing and, in the view of his detractors, mismanaging the color-coded terrorist alert system. That system became the butt of late-night comedy routines and sometimes seemed to leave the public more confused than reassured.

Mr. Ridge defended the system on Tuesday as a transparent way to communicate both to the public and to law enforcement agencies that the government sees a change in the intensity of the threat to the United States.

The names most often mentioned as a successor include Bernard B. Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner who was dispatched by the administration to Iraq last year to help set up an Iraqi security force, and Fran Townsend, the domestic security adviser in the White House.

But their chances of getting the job appear to be fading, said people who have spoken to administration officials about the post.

Other possibilities include Gordon R. England, a former deputy to Mr. Ridge at the department and now serving a second term as Navy secretary; Asa Hutchinson, an undersecretary in the department, and Joe Allbaugh, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and a longtime associate of Mr. Bush.

In putting together his new cabinet, Mr. Bush has favored loyal aides, but he has also from time to time confounded the gossip mill by reaching outside of Washington to bring in new faces, as he did on Monday in naming Carlos M. Gutierrez, the chief executive of the Kellogg Company, to be commerce secretary.

In stating that he would stay on through January or until his successor is confirmed by the Senate, Mr. Ridge appeared to be responding to concerns that he not leave the post vacant around the Christmas and New Year's holidays or during the presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, potentially attractive times for terrorists to strike.

Further cabinet changes are coming, people who have spoken to White House officials say, with Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, likely to be the next to resign.

Mr. Ridge said at the news conference that he had begun thinking about leaving after Mr. Bush was re-elected.

Associates of Mr. Ridge said a spate of news reports in recent weeks speculating that he would be leaving led him to decide that he had to make a decision quickly to avoid creating uncertainty among the department's 180,000 employees about who would be leading them.

Mr. Ridge, they said, informed Mr. Bush of his plans on Tuesday morning after a regular briefing on the terrorism threat -- the first time they had met face to face in several weeks. He then worked out the specific timing of his departure with Andrew H. Card Jr., the White House chief of staff.

Mr. Ridge said he was ''fairly confident'' that the measures his department enacted had helped thwart terrorist attacks, but he acknowledged that he could not prove it.

''But I am confident that the terrorists are aware that from the curb to the cockpit we've got additional security measures that didn't exist a couple years ago, that from port to port we do things differently with maritime security,'' he said. ''Confident that they know the borders are more secure. I'm confident that they know that we've developed and are sharing information with the state and local law enforcement.''

Mr. Ridge, a moderate Republican who was once seen as a potential presidential or vice-presidential candidate, generally won praise from members of Congress in both parties.

Representative Christopher Cox, the California Republican who is chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said his achievements were ''all the more remarkable given the enormous internal management challenges Secretary Ridge faced upon taking over a new department made up of 22 previously independent legacy agencies.''

Democrats used Mr. Ridge's departure to renew their criticism of the administration as not having done more, especially in areas like port security and passenger airline cargo where they say policies remain too lax and budgets too small.

''The next secretary should make the closure of these security loopholes a top priority,'' Representative Edward J. Markey, Democrat of Massachusetts, said in a statement.